


Of Sounds and Colors

by BlizzardMist



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Asexual Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Bisexual Character, Canon Compliant, Chromesthesia, Crack, Crack and Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Crack, Gay Male Character, Idols, Internalized Acephobia, Kinda, Lee Jihoon | Woozi-centric, M/M, Non AU, Pansexual Character, Queer Character, Soft af, Synesthesia, like seriously, most of them are fluff but 3 is stressful, sleepy woozi is adorable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-25 07:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12526120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlizzardMist/pseuds/BlizzardMist
Summary: When the dawn is brighter than the day, the day sometimes seems pretty dark.A Woozi-centric canon fic





	1. The Title Track Dilemma (or Rose Quartz and Serenity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woozi has Chromesthesia, sound-color synesthesia, (and perfect pitch) and it gets VERY problematic VERY quickly. 
> 
> 1\. Platonic JihoonxSoonyoung

Composing had never really been that big of an issue to Jihoon. It was always a step by step process. Choose the color, choose the key, find some instruments to match the color, and write a piece that would work well with those colors. But for some reason, today, Jihoon couldn't even decide what colors he wanted to write in. 

 

It had to be a really pretty colors, of course, debut songs are often pretty colors, but they had to be colors that would still reflect the essence of the group. So out the window went atonality and its horrible chartreuse color (not that Jihoon was even really considering it, but it honestly felt better having eliminated at least one option, how ever unlikely an option it may be), and so did G and D major, not because they weren't nice keys, just because, seriously, is yellow and orange really the colors Seventeen are? But taking three keys off the possible list really didn't do much at all, there was still the immense pressure of choosing the right color for the groups debut song; if he chose the wrong color the blame would fall on him. And that stress of "If I mess up the whole group falls" was what caused his inability to think straight (not that he really ever thought straight in general, but that's another story for another time.)

 

Having a Word document up and just staring at it for hours on end would do nothing, he decided, and so, he would have to start experimenting. C Major didn't look nor sound right, and even though A minor's baby pink was slightly better than the cream color of its relative major, it still wasn't the right color. E minor was just as awkward as G Major had been in his head, and B minor had also suffered quick rejection. (Shame, he thought, because they were really nice colors, they just didn't fit.) Mint green from F Major would be too calming for a debut song and D mi-

 

_Grey. (Or in other words, bzzzz.)_

 

Jihoon looked away from his workspace towards his phone. The lit up screen, first of all, really hurt his eyes, because the brightness was too high, and secondly, showed the name of the Performance Units Leader surrounded by little star emojis (Jihoon had to admit, even though he claimed he hated those emojis, he still kept them there because why not?)

(Glowing Star )Soonyoungieee(Glowing Star )

Are you alive  
11:47pm

Come home soon alright  
11:47 pm

I miss youuuu  
11:48 pm

\---

minihoon

I'll head home  
11:48 pm

I've been super unproductive  
11:48 pm

10 minutes, don't go to bed without me  
11:48 pm

Jihoon switched his phone screen off, and started saving all the countless documents open on his computer. He stared at the blank Cubase file for once last minute, before letting out a sigh and clicking on the red X. (It didn't even prompt him to save, and even though Jihoon knew he had been unproductive, to him it felt like the program was mocking him.)

Jisoo and Jeonghan, in fear of Jihoons safety, had decided that when walking, Jihoon was under no circumstance allowed to listen to music with both earbuds. The original rule was no music at all, but they soon realized that there was no way the younger member would comply, so the rule changed to just one earbud. And although Jihoon wasn't completely happy with the rule, it was better having only half of the jumble of colors in front of his eyes, the other option being a headache. So, with one earbud in his ear, Jihoon set out along the winter streets of Seoul, wrapped tightly in the jacket that Seungcheol had lent him (that explained why the jacket was basically bigger than him.) His phone played a soothing oboe concerto in turquoise, but the blaring horns of the occasional car and the voices of other pedestrians merged together to create some weird clashing mixture of brown, yellow and blue. It wasn't pleasant, and Jihoon cursed under his breath for having taken the route with the most people. 

He stopped at a bench on the side of the road, took a seat and put in the second earbud. Finally, the aggravating dissonance and clashing color disappeared from his field of view, and the turquoise got to sit comfortably in his field of view. Jihoon shut his eyes. Peace. And then flash of grey. Slightly annoyed that someone had broken his nice calm moment, Jihoon turned on his phone and read the message from Soonyoung.

(Glowing Star )Soonyoungieee(Glowing Star )

jihoon have you eaten  
11:59 pm

\---

minihoon

nope  
11:59 pm

if i had eaten i would have been back way earlier  
12:00 am

\---

(Glowing Star )Soonyoungieee(Glowing Star )

great  
12:00 am

nor have i  
12:00 am

i'll meet you at the convenience store on the corner?  
12:01 am

\---

minihoon

sure, 3 minutes  
12:01 am

wear something warm  
12:02 am

this is not the weather for a tshirt and shorts  
12:02 am

Reluctantly, Jihoon pulled the second earphone out of his ear and continued trudging down the sidewalk. It had become noticeably quieter in the five or so minutes he had been sitting, and he felt much more at ease. He hummed along to the melody that the oboe was playing and as he approached the entrance of the convenience store, the piece ended (internally he had just given himself a high five for perfect timing.) He closed the music app, and as the doors slid open, he heard a pink voice from behind him. 

"Jihoonieee! You're alive!" Soonyoung shouted as he approached the shorter male, embracing him in a warm hug.

Jihoon pushed him off. "Yeah, I'm alive, it's a miracle."

\----

Having sat down at one of the tables in the corner, each with a bowl of ramyeon, Jihoon sighed and sank into his seat. Soonyoung gave him a funny look, analyzing the composer from head to toe. 

"What's up? You look dead." Soonyoung asked, before shoveling some noodles into his mouth. 

Jihoon sighed again. "I'm just not making any progress on our debut songs and it's really worrying that I've got basically nothing and we're debuting in a few months."

"Do you want me to listen to what you have, maybe give an idea or two?" Soonyoung offered, watching Jihoon dejectedly continue stirring his noodles that definitely did not need more stirring.

A small chuckle emerged from his lips. "I wish, but I've gotten literally nowhere. I haven't even decided which keys they should be in."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Exactly."

Silence. "Well, at least eat something! If you don't start eating I'm taking your food," Soonyoung threatened with a grin, before reaching out to grab the food.

Jihoon gasped in horror. "No! My food!" He pulled the bowl closer to himself and Soonyoung retracted his hand. 

"Well then eat it!"

No reply came from the other, who seemed to have shoved the whole bowl of noodles into his mouth.

"Soonyoung?" The older boy looked at Jihoon, who had finished his food, "I know it seems like a strange question, but what colors do you think really represent our group?"

He thought for a second. And then a minute. "I don't really know. There's a lot I'm thinking of. Do you need an answer now, or can I think more?"

"I can wait." Jihoon stood up to throw their trash away, "I just thought maybe an extra opinion could be useful."

"True." The two of them wrapped themselves in the jackets they had brought before heading back out into the cold. 

\----

When the two arrived back at the dorm, all the lights were out, and the only sound came from the others shifting in their sleep. Soonyoung and Jihoon stayed as silent as they could. Once he saw his bed, Jihoon headed straight for the soft mattress. He enveloped himself in the warm duvet, and his eyes shut quickly. 

About thirty seconds had passed, and then another person climbed into the bed with him. Jihoon shifted upwards to make space for the other boy. 

"Jihoon-ah?" Soonyoung's pink voice whispered.

"Mm?" 

"Rose Quartz and Serenity." 

Jihoon furrowed his eyebrows. "What are you talking about? Are you drunk? What are Rose Quartz and Serenity?"

"Earlier you asked me what colors I think represent Seventeen, and that's my answer, Rose Quartz and Serenity." Soonyoung showed the composer the picture on his phone, and Jihoon couldn't help but smile. 

"Thanks a lot." Soonyoung got up to leave, but Jihoon grabbed his wrist and held him back. "Can you stay here tonight?" 

"Of course." The two lay back down, and Jihoon felt a warm arm around him. 

"Good night Jihoon-ah." Soonyoung said in his pink- no, Rose Quartz voice.

"Good night." 

As Soonyoung snuggled into Jihoon's body, one last thought ran through his mind. 

D minor. 

Finally.


	2. Studio Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Finally, someone who understands! The song sounds better in B flat major, but it's the wrong color so I can't transpose it because you can't have a dark purple piece be transposed into a light blue piece and it frustrated the life out of me!" 
> 
> PlatonicJihoonxMinghao

For three days, Jihoon had not left his studio. Normally, after deciding the key and color of the track, composing and producing would become an efficient process, with a decent draft of the final track taking at most two and a half days. This time however, he found himself stuck by the end of day two. So instead of acting like a person with any common sense and taking a break from that piece, he locked the doors and spent far too long deliberating. It wasn’t even that big an issue, one side of his brain said, just transpose it, the colors didn’t even matter. But every time he clicked that transpose button and changed the piece to B flat major, the other part of his mind would shout at him. It sounded just as good transposed, probably even better. But the colors would not ever work. It was his personal philosophy that one should never, ever, ever(!) transpose a piece further away than two keys on the circle of fifths. If you did, the colors would not make sense anymore. Light blue was too far from dark purple for the piece to make sense. 

So he decided he wouldn’t transpose it. 

Yet he still spent a whole day in the studio, listening to the piece over and over in the two different keys. F sharp, B flat, F sharp, B flat, F sh- 

At some point in the late evening (Jihoon didn’t know exactly when, but his best guess was around 8 pm. He had stopped looking at the clock around noon, because once again, everything seemed to be making fun of his lack of productivity), he heard a knock on the door. It was quiet, yet loud enough for him to hear it through the light blue version of the piece. Under any normal circumstances, he probably would’ve told whoever it was that unless somebody was dying, they should come back later. But, in that moment, maybe he needed another person to help him. 

“The door’s open.”

Jihoon didn’t even need to turn around to know who it was. The younger of the two Chinese members had always had the quietest footsteps out of all the members, and that made it quite obvious who had come to visit his cave. 

“Uh… I noticed you haven’t been at the dorm for a few days, and I thought maybe I could bring you some things if you haven’t finished working yet.” The boy carrying a large bag looked absolutely tiny as he stumbled over some of his words in the most endearing way anyone could stumble over their words and fiddled with the ring on his finger. Once he turned around, Jihoon saw Minghao staring at the ground in front of his feet, as if even talking to the elder member would cause him to be viciously torn apart. While Jihoon found the fact that the younger seemed to be scared of him quite amusing, somewhere deep inside it made complete sense to him. The two had worked together in the past, but Jihoon had come off as a small bundle of terror to Minghao. Not being able to properly speak a language, and having someone talk to you with an unfriendly expression in that language would not help foster a friendship. So it told him a lot about the Chinese boy when he came in with all the stuff.

"Thanks Minghao-ah", Jihoon grinned, and watched the other place the bag on the floor. Minghao turned to head to the door, but Jihoon stood up and grabbed his shoulder, stopping him from leaving. "Actually, can you help me with this?" 

\--------

In Minghao's black bag of goodies, there was a large bottle of water, three cans of Coke, a blanket, a spare change of clothes, Jihoon's favorite t-shirt and shorts to sleep in, some soap, six stuffed animals (two of them definitely did not belong to Jihoon), five cups of ramyeon, two packets of microwaveable rice, two packets of something that Jihoon (correctly) assumed to be curry, but couldn't read because it was in Chinese, a bottle of shampoo and a towel. By the time Jihoon actually asked Minghao to help him with anything, the water was nearly finished, Jihoon was wearing the pyjamas, both the curry and rice were gone as well as one of the ramyeon cups. Out of the three Coke cans, one was in the fridge in the company kitchen, the other two were dutifully put in the recycling bins. The blanket was spread out over their laps as they sat surrounded by the stuffed animals on the mattress that was formerly tucked behind one of the keyboards. 

It took an hour for Jihoon to remember what he needed help with. "Hao-ah! Help me decide on this!"

"Hm?"

"Tell me which of these sound better, I can't decide," he sighed before playing the original draft.

The second he turned it on, the shouting match inside his mind began playing again, going on and on about purples and blues, light and dark, I'm right, you're wrong, we're all the same person but still, it won't work and Jihoon could not wait for the younger to make a decision about it and put his stress to an end.

"I like it in both keys," Minghao simply stated after hearing them both. Jihoon was not happy with this answer, and as he opened his mouth to speak, Minghao cut him off. "But, I think the first one would be better for a boy group, the second for a girl group. So, I pick the first one."

Jihoon collapsed on the mattress, finally having made a decision. "But, hyung, why was it so hard for you to decide?"

"It's stupid," he shook his head and grinned, "it's done now."

"I wanna know!" Minghao whined, holding XiaoYing the turtle to his chest and pouted like a little child. 

"Come with me to get more food and I'll tell you?"

\--------

The two of them returned to. The studio carrying two more cups of ramyeon, four packets of chips, and a mind thanking their bodies for a high metabolism. Jihoon made himself comfortable under the blanket again, leaning against one of the studio walls, as Minghao sat down next to him. 

"So," Minghao asked through a mouthful of noodles, "are you going to answer my question hyung?"

Jihoon stared at him blankly for a second, before remembering. Oh, that question, he thought, and then set down his food.

"Basically, I have a condition called synesthesia, more specifically chromesthesia. It's when two or more senses are kind of mashed together, or something triggers an association that isn't exactly," he raised his fingers and made air quotes, "normal. Like, for some people with synesthesia, letters and numbers each have a specific color, or maybe different sounds have different tastes. Me, I see sounds."

Minghao stared at him, half confused, but also half processing what the elder had said. "Ah, wait a minute! I think I know what you're talking about, let me check." He took out his phone, and opened a translator app. After fiddling with the keyboard settings for a minute (he struggled to find Chinese by just cycling through them all), he typed something in and held it up to show Jihoon. "That's what it is, right?"

"Yeah. That's it." Jihoon grinned. Finally someone actually knew what synesthesia was (having to explain to Jeonghan and Jisoo why he needed to block out sounds on the streets had taken so much effort...). "But yeah, I see sounds."

Minghao still looked slightly confused though. "But why couldn't you decide what key the piece should be in?" 

"For me, each key and note has a different color, and changing the key changed the overall color of the piece. And although to me, it sounded better in the higher key, it didn't seem right to have it in that color." Jihoon paused to see if it made any sense, and when he got no reply, he continued. "You can think about it like this. Imagine there's a really young child. The child has black hair. Then imagine this same child with, I don't know, red hair. It may look good, but it doesn't seem right to be dying a child's hair so young."

"So for you, it's the wrong color, yet it may sound better, right? I wouldn't see it the same way, just because I don't see sounds like you do."

Jihoon laughed brightly. "Finally, someone who understands! The song sounds better in B flat major, but it's the wrong color so I can't transpose it because you can't have a dark purple piece be transposed into a light blue piece and it frustrated the life out of me!"

Nobody spoke for a second. "How you see the world must be so beautiful then, hyung. I can barely imagine seeing things like that, but it just seems so beautiful."

"It'd be cooler and more beautiful for you than me. I've never seen things in any other way, so it's just, well, normal for me. And there's bad things about it as well. I actually only found out that what synesthesia was because people would call me crazy for talking about how I see things. Things like this, and also headaches, they all come with it." He paused. "But honestly, I can't imagine living without it."

\--------

They finished talking around 11 pm. The water was finished, as well as the chips they had brought up earlier. Minghao was worried about not getting back to the dorm at a reasonable time, while Jihoon was more worried about how much trouble they'd be in for eating so much junk food. Either way, both of them were visibly exhausted and knew they would need all their energy for dance practice the next morning.

"Don't bother walking back, just stay here. It's too far and I'd be lonely otherwise." Jihoon murmured from under the blanket.

"Are you sure hyung?"

"Mm. Stay."

"Alright." 

Jihoon felt a warm body next to his, and immediately latched on to the heat source. 

"Good night Hao-ah."

"Night hyung. Sleep well, you need it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sleepy Jihoon is a clingy and soft Jihoon. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and will keep reading. The next chapter is halfway finished, so it should be up within a week or so! See you soon!


	3. Coming Out Pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's not going to get better, I'm gonna be broken for the rest of my life, aren't I?"
> 
> PlatonicJihoonXJeonghan

Jihoon could count the number of time he had come out on his fingers. And the majority had been a bit of a disaster. Childhood friends, gone. Heck, he could tell even his parents were disappointed. And he couldn't blame them, honestly, would you want a broken son? Coming out had only worked successfully once, and that wasn't enough. So, Jihoon gave up on the whole leaving the closet concept, and stayed firmly locked in there even as his fellow group members came out.

 

Soonyoung had been the first member to come out of the closet, about four months before their debut. He had sent a message out on the group chat, telling all the members to meet in the living room in half an hours time. Now Jihoon wasn't very happy with that; he had just made a good start on a new piece and stopping would just slow everything down. But with a sigh, he wrapped himself in his warm coat (well it technically still wasn't his but we can overlook that right?) and head out the studio door towards the dorm.

 

As always, he plugged in his pair of earphones and placed the one working bud in his ear. But just thirty seconds later, he heard a crackle and a pop, and then silence. Well, not silence, but a wave of bright colors streaming in, neon green, bright orange, sky blue, fluorescent pink, and oh look! chartreuse, just general pain and headache. However, as to respect his hyungs rules, he trudged on, attempting to block out the migraine-inducing cacophony. By the time he had turned onto the main street, the noise had gotten so loud, and he couldn't resist plugging in his headphones and placing them over his head. With the volume turned up to a dangerous level, finally, he could walk in peace.

 

About three minutes into the piece, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He paused the music and turned around.

 

Well shit.

 

Jeonghan stood there, disappointment written across his face. "Jihoon-ah, what did I tell you?"

 

"Hyung I'm really sorry, my earbuds broke and it really got too much and I thought that it would be alright but I-"

 

"It's fine, don't get upset. I'm not angry at you. Listen, keep your headphones on, I'll be your ears."

 

Jihoon replaced his headphones, and Jeonghan grabbed his hand, and the two walked down the street, the younger trailing behind with his headphones playing the music at an acceptable level.

 

When the two entered the apartment block of their dorm, Jihoon took off his headphones, and took in the near silence.

 

"You should go to sleep once Soonyoungie has said what he has to say." Jeonghan's light green voice spoke quietly. "You look dead."

 

"I'll try."

 

The two walked up the stairs and opened the door, Jihoon almost tripping over the pairs of shoes lying about in the entrance. Having gotten changed, they sat down in the living room, and soon realized they were the last ones there. A moment of silence followed, before Seungcheol took the lead. "Soonyoung, what's up?"

 

The blond boy looked across at the rest of the members; it was evident that he had been crying.

 

"I, uh, it's a bit weird saying this out loud, but I thought it over, and I decided it was about time I stopped lying to you all, even if you hate me after."

 

Jihoon started to blank out, and he had to pull himself back to reality at least three times during the silence.

 

"I'm gay."

 

Nobody spoke again for fifteen seconds or so, but during that time, thoughts kept running through Jihoon's mind, what he should say, if he should come out (that one was pushed aside immediately) and how in the world he would finish those goddamn songs.

 

"That's fine, Soonyoung-ah." Seungcheol smiled warmly, pulling the younger member towards him, and then he whispered into Soonyoung's ear, "And just so you know, I'm bisexual, so if you want to talk about cute guys to anyone, I'm all ears."

 

He turned towards the other members, and with a stern undertone to his voice, he said, "If any of you have a problem with Soonyoung's sexuality, one, you're gonna have to deal with it, two, come and sort it out with me. We are not, and I mean not, going to have problems in this groups just because of who another member loves. Got it?"

 

Jihoon couldn't even really bring himself to nod in response -- his eyes seemed to be falling shut every second, and images of then appeared in his mind again. He could feel Jeonghan's stare boring into him, but he was too tired to even move properly.

 

"Right, everybody, off to bed, it's a school night," Jeonghan stated, having waited a few moments, "And I don't want to be the one chasing you guys out the door because you're late." Jihoon stood up and began to drag himself to the bedroom, but he had only walked a few feet before he felt a hand on his shoulder.

 

"I'm sorry, but we need to talk." Jeonghan picked the younger boy up, and carried him back to the area where they had just been sitting.

 

"Jihoon, tell me honestly, on a scale from one to ten, one being perfectly fine, and ten being a complete mess, how are you doing?"

 

Jihoon sighed, then yawned. "At least a seven, or maybe seven and a half." Jeonghan frowned, then sighed. "First of all, what you need is a hug. Hugs make your body release oxytocin and serotonin, and they-"

 

"Help to relieve stress and anxiety, and make you feel happy. I know this stuff hyung, I'm about to graduate." Jihoon shuffled into the elders warm arms, and buried his head into Jeonghan's chest.

 

"I think I know why I've been worse lately."

 

"Hmm?"

 

"I think it's because of the argument I had with my mom recently, I just can't get it out of my head. I mean, I didn't expect that coming out would damage our relation- oh shit."

 

"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I'm here."

 

Jihoon chuckled slightly, pulling away from the elders chest. "I mean, now you know I'm not straight, so it'd be wrong for me not to come out to you."

 

"Meh. Either way, I won't judge you."

 

"How am I meant to say it, I mean, it's such an awkward thing to say, don't you think?"

 

"I mean, I'm not of much help here, when I came out to my parents, my sister and I baked a rainbow cake and iced it saying 'hey! both your children are kinda gay!' So..."

 

"Right that's useless so I'm just going to spit it out. I'm asexual pan-romantic."

 

"Hi asexual pan-romantic, I'm Jeonghan, and I'm pansexual." Jeonghan laughed, before pulling the shorter boy towards him again. "Also, I don't know your mother that well, but I'm surprised that she would get upset about this."

 

"I mean, thinking about it now, it makes sense, I'm an only child, I don't want to have children, and I know that my mom wants grandchildren, so she's obviously going to be disappointed."

 

"Well, she should at least be nice to you about it, coming out is hard and she knows you're stressed." Jeonghan pushed his hair out of his face. "Jihoon-ah, if anything is wrong, come to me alright? I'm always open to listen."

 

Jihoon smiled, before reaching out to give Jeonghan a hug. "Thanks hyung." Jeonghan gave him a bit of a confused look. "I thought you hated skinship."

 

"You're different, and you're warm." Jihoon yawned as his eyes fell shut.

 

"Aigoo, aigoo, let's get you to bed." Jeonghan picked the shorter boy up again and walked towards his bedroom.

 

"Hyung?"

 

"Hmm?"

 

"You're pan as well?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"We could be the pots unit, and we'd only sing songs about how nobody knows we exist."

 

Jeonghan chuckled quietly, as he put Jihoon down in his bed. "Are you drunk? Or are you always like this when you're tired?"

 

"The second."

 

"Good night Jihoonie, rest well."

 

\---

 

When Jihoon woke up in the morning and glanced over at the alarm clock, internally he started screaming.

 

9:47 am!

 

School had started over an hour ago! In a rush, he jumped out of bed and rushed to the bathroom. On his way, he spotted Jeonghan in the kitchen holding a cup of coffee.

 

"Jeonghan hyung!" The long haired man turned his head to look at Jihoon and smiled. "Good morning! Do you want coffee?"

 

"Hyung! I have school!" Jihoon continued rushing to the bathroom.

 

"No you don't." Jihoon stopped in his tracks. "I called manager hyung this morning, told him you weren't doing so well last night, and he sent an email to your teacher saying you were absent for the day.Manager hyung also gave me the day off so that I can take care of you and make sure you don't work." He paused. "So... coffee?"

 

"Sure."

 

Jihoon approached Jeonghan and picked the extra steaming mug of black coffee up. As he sipped, he stared out into the distance and started playing through their pre-debut song again. 'Shining Diamond' had given him lots of problems while composing it, but Jihoon could happily say that he was pleased with the result.

 

"Where are Jisoo and Seungcheol hyungs?" Jihoon asked.

 

"Shua went to Korean lessons, and Seungcheol's at the company writing lyrics."

 

Suddenly, he felt a warm hand on his head, running fingers through his hair, and brushing the messy strands back down, and although he enjoyed the contact, he couldn’t help but tense up. That’s what _he_ used to do. Jeonghan pulled his hand away quickly, and then apologised quietly.

 

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Just reminded me of someone.”

 

Jeonghan looked puzzled for a second. "Do you mind if I ask who? Anybody I know?"

 

Jihoon laughed coldly. "He was a trainee when I joined the company, and he left before you came. I doubt you’d know him.“

 

Jeonghan stayed silent again.

 

"I became a trainee in summer 2010, when I was thirteen. Seungcheol hyung was there already, as well as Nu'est hyungs. I was in a dorm room with two other people and one empty bed, Minki hyung and the other guy, Dongwon. Dongwon was a year or so older than me, and at first he seemed really nice. Taking care of me, always helping me when I needed, he acted like a perfect hyung. Perfect, my ass."

 

\---

 

After a long day of practice, the group of 9 trainees stumbled back into the dorm. While most of the boys headed for the bathroom, Dongwon (and a sleepy Jihoon, the youngest, who was on his back) dragged his feet to Jihoon's bed and slowly eased him off his back. Dongwon stood up to leave, but felt a small tug at the back of his shirt.

 

"Stay here." Jihoon mumbled, still not letting go of the shirt. Despite his small stature, Dongwon knew how strong the maknae was, so for the safety of his favorite shirt he lay down on the bed next to Jihoon. The boy wrapped his limbs around Dongwon like a koala, and he could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks as the younger boy pulled him closer. To most of the other trainees, it was no secret that Dongwon was gay, and that he had a crush on the maknae. Jihoon, on the other hand, seemed completely oblivious to the elders feelings, and had also completely missed Dongwon's coming out, having been asleep that evening.

 

Although Jihoon had only been a trainee for three months, he could say with full confidence that the others were like his parents and brothers in the big city. And he loved it. Being able to pursue his dreams, and have others by his side shooting for the stars just like him, it all seemed perfect. Too perfect.

 

\---

 

"Coming out was my biggest mistake. That evening, for some reason, I decided I would come out. And I did. I told Dongwon I was ace pan-ro, and he didn't react. At least, not straight away."

 

"This isn't the time to say not gay away, right?" Jihoon snickered slightly.

 

"Oh my god hyung, I can't believe you! Back then, I had accepted my sexuality, I thought it was fine, and that if all else fails, I could still pass as straight. I didn't think I was broken, or that there was something wrong with me. I was who I was, nothing more, nothing less. Evidently Dongwon didn't think the same."

 

\---

 

The next morning, after reluctantly letting go of his teddy hyung and getting up, Jihoon found himself on the 20 minute bus journey to school, sitting next to Dongwon as he stared out the window. His hyung was reading as always, but Jihoon found it more interesting to watch the buildings and other cars fly by. The two would rarely talk on their journey, instead relishing in the quiet and calm atmosphere. While Jihoon watched the outside world, busy with people commuting to work, he found the pastel colors of the people on the bus very soothing.

 

"Jihoon-ah, look at this", Dongwon whispered, pointing at a paragraph of the book he was reading. Just from glancing at the page, Jihoon assumed it was another biology book. And it would fit -- Dongwon was definitely the cleverest trainee among them all, burning through countless books every month, and set to graduate two years early. Every day, he would be learning something new, and all the information would get absorbed almost instantly. It's like his head is a sponge, Minhyun had joked, but it was true.

 

Normally, when Dongwon would give Jihoon something to read, he would enjoy it, find it interesting, or have learnt something new. This time, however, Jihoon couldn't help but frown.

 

"A common cause of a lack of sexual attraction is a hormone imbalance. This can be fixed through two methods, these being hormone treatment, or corrective sexual activity."

 

"It's ridiculous, right?" Dongwon rolled his eyes as he took a pencil out of his bag and scribbled over the paragraph.

 

"Yeah." Jihoon turned to stare back out the window, and Dongwon looked back down at his book. "Isn't that from the library?"

 

"Well shit."

 

\---

 

“Every person has at least one flaw, in some way, otherwise the world falls out of balance. And the more talented and perfect a person seems, the more flaws they have, or their flaws are much larger. That’s just how things work. Dongwon seemed like a lucky exception to the rule at first glance. He was good at everything, sports, art, music, dance, and he was definitely a genius, I’ll give him credit for that. He was generally patient and kind, generous, hardworking, so no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find that one big flaw. I found it too late.”

 

“Dongwon’s main flaw was his intelligence. He knew a lot, but at some point that changes from knowing a lot, to thinking you know everything. He would either think too far, or not enough, and he always believed that he was in the right. That his opinion was the correct one. And he had so much information crammed away in his mind, that if it popped out of the storage, no matter what he actually thought about it, slowly but surely, because he couldn’t put it back in, it became what he thought was right. And no matter what, that storage was always overflowing, because he craved knowledge, he never stopped learning new things. Does that make sense?”

 

\---

 

Every day after school, before heading to the company to practice, Jihoon and Dongwon would find each other to go home together. Jihoon knew that on Thursdays, Dongwon had a free period before the end of the school day, and there were really only two places he would ever be during that time. Waiting outside Jihoon’s classroom, having walked from the high school block to the middle school block, or in the library, getting invested in some book again. But one Thursday, when Jihoon went to look for him, he wasn't in either of those two places. He roamed the halls all alone, keeping an eye out for the other trainee (not that he could really see much, he was at least a whole head shorter than the majority of the student body; the company had been so worried about his short stature that they took him to the hospital to check if he had a hormone imbalance. The results came back negative, and the doctors had said that Jihoon was just... short.) He ducked into a small classroom he knew should be empty to escape from the noise, and then glanced at his watch. They had missed the bus, there wouldn't be another one for 20 minutes, and Jihoon knew that he would get in big trouble for being late to practice. Damn Pledis for not allowing them to have phones until they turned 15.

 

“Jihoon-ah!” Dongwon shouted from the corridor, breathing heavily as he ran.

 

"Hyung! Where were you, we're gonna get in so much trouble!" Jihoon furrowed his brow, before the older boy started dragging him towards the building exit. "Hyung, what are you doing? We missed the bus!"

 

"I know, but just come please."

 

Jihoon stayed silent as they continued down the long hallways. When they arrived at the bus stop, a different bus pulled up, and ignoring Jihoons arguments, they got on the bus.

 

Dongwon sat in the window seat, some thing very abnormal for him to do, and he looked nervous, knees and hands shaking as he continuously looked around, as if there was someone following him.

 

Grabbing his hand and placing their intertwined hands on top of Dongwon's shaking knee, Jihoon gave him a questioning look. As the bus stopped at each of the stations, Dongwon calmed down slightly, he stopped shaking, and Jihoon attempted to remove his hand but the elders grip was too strong. “Hyung.” Dongwon turned to look at Jihoon. “Let go of my- What happened?”

 

Only then did Jihoon notice the slowly forming bruise and the cut under his hyung’s right eye, and the split lip. It was obvious that he had been in a fight, but that seemed so strange, so unlike him.

 

“Nothing, I’m fine.” Dongwon smiled slightly, and then the bus stopped again. “It’s our stop, come on."

 

The two got off the bus, and Dongwon led then through backstreets that Jihoon had never seen.

 

"You're not fine, stop lying." Jihoon scoffed. "Honestly hyung, you look like you just got beaten up."

 

Dongwon glared at the younger boy. "Have some respect kid, this happened 'cause I tried to protect you, and if you don't start showing some respect for your elders, I'm going to stop."

 

Jihoon stayed silent.

 

\--

 

The duo arrived at the dorm just five minutes later than expected, and when Jihoon asked why they didn't always take that route if it was so fast, he just said that it was "a dodgy area that should be avoided." Getting changed at lightning speed, they sprinted over to the company building and arrived only two minutes late.

 

The hyungs took notice of Dongwon's wounds immediately, as Jihoon expected. They made a big fuss about it, and forced Dongwon to sit out of the first thirty minutes of practice with a makeshift ice pack that was dripping all over his face. Meanwhile, Jihoon struggled to stay focused on all the exercises. What Dongwon had said about protecting him was running through his mind nonstop and although the others picked up on his strange behavior, nobody questioned it.

 

They got back to the dorm at 11pm, all of them exhausted, and straight away the older trainees fought over the order of bathroom usage. Dongwon and Jihoon, being the two youngest (even if Dongwon was a decent amount older than Jihoon,) knew that no matter what, they would always be last. Instead, the two of them sat on their beds in silence, almost too tired to talk. But what Dongwon had said still confused him. He didn’t need protection, did he?

 

“Hyung.”

 

Dongwon opened his eyes slightly. "Hm?"

 

"Earlier, you know, you said something about protecting me. What- You know what, never mind.”

 

Dongwon glanced at him with a small smile. “It’s nothing important.” Jihoon noticed the bruises on his face had turned a nasty blueish-black even though the swelling had stopped, but the cuts and the split lip seemed to have already healed slightly, but there was still some dried blood around the wound. Jihoon stood up, and carrying a small towel that he always kept wet (they really come in handy!) he sat down next to Dongwon and carefully cleaned his face.

 

"Jihoon-ah." Dongwon murmured as Jihoon put a Spiderman plaster on his face.

 

"Hm?"

 

"You know I'm gay right?"

 

Jihoon pulled his hands away from Dongwon's face. "Now I do."

 

"Uh, I'm not sure how to say this, but I really like you and I was wondering if you'd consider being my boyfriend?"

 

\---

 

"Here's where everything started going downhill. If only I hadn't been so stupid and rejected him."

 

Jeonghan looked at Jihoon. "Did you like him or not though?"

 

"Well, yeah, but not as much as he liked me, and honestly a lot of the feelings I had for him seem almost forced now."

 

"If you liked him, then saying yes wasn't a mistake at the time, because no matter what he did to you, you couldn't have predicted it."

 

Jihoon sighed. "Maybe."

 

\---

 

Although Jihoon had had a "girlfriend" before, he had never kissed anyone, be it a boy or a girl. So when one Monday night, as the two of them lay in bed together snuggling, Dongwon gave him a small peck on the lips, Jihoon wasn't exactly sure how he felt. It was nice -- saying it wasn't would be a lie, but some part of him felt weird about it. So Jihoon simply ignored it and brought himself even closer to his hyung. Jihoon slept well that night.

 

On their way to school the next morning, everything seemed the same. The two would sit in the same seat as always, side by side, Dongwon reading a book (this time it was about philosophy and Jihoon couldn't help but admit it looked very interesting; he would have to ask Dongwon if he could borrow it for the next day) and Jihoon staring out the window. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except for the fact that Dongwon had his fingers laced together with Jihoon's throughout nearly the whole ride.

 

Lessons finished at about the same for Jihoon and Dongwon on Tuesdays, so Jihoon and Dongwon would race to see who could get to the others classroom first, the most common outcome being them meeting in the middle. So when that Tuesday, Jihoon sprinted out of his Chemistry lesson towards the high school block and realized his hyung was not going to meet him on his way, he knew something was up. It took him five minutes to get to the classroom, and by that point, it should have been empty, but Jihoon heard shouts as he approached. He peeked through the small opening in the doorway, and caught sight of two older boys and their victim. Like animals, they seemed to violently play around with their prey, every once in while landing a blow to the others torso.

 

"I'm telling you to apologize. Now." Jihoon could only watch as one of the two violently kicked the other boy's chest, and he couldn't tell if his vision was tinged red because of the voices of the others or because of his rising anger. He desperately wanted to storm into the classroom and give the bullies the same treatment, but the rational part of him realized that that was simply stupid. And so, he just stood there, completely frozen, until he saw the victim mouth the words "Leave and hide. Please."

 

His breathing sped up. How could he just leave his boyfriend to get kicked around? But Dongwon had looked so desperate for him to just hide, so he frantically looked around for somewhere. Nothing came to his mind, until his eyes locked on Dongwon's locker. Jihoon knew Dongwon never actually used his locker; according to him, putting in the code was too much effort. Jihoon thanked whomever for helping him to remember the code, and slid into the locker. This was one of the few times Jihoon was actually happy about not being the tallest person out there -- even for him, it was a tight squeeze.

 

"I can't believe he still stands up for that crazy kid, and lets himself get hurt. Geniuses don't have common sense, am I right?" Jihoon felt every breath become more labored as he caught a glimpse of the two boys walking down the hall, laughing. All the red tint had disappeared, and instead, he was left feeling drained in a stuffy locker.

 

"Jihoon-ah?" Dongwon's voice rang out from the hallway, but Jihoon couldn't bring himself to move. "It's fine, you'll be alright now." He heard brown footsteps approaching the locker, and when the light flooded in from the now open door, he flung himself around his hyung, burying his face into his shoulder.

 

He didn't notice Dongwon wince before hugging him back.

 

"Let's get back to the dorm, okay?" Dongwon smiled slightly, "You need to rest, puppy."

 

Practice had been cancelled that day, due to some sort of virus having struck down five of the hyungs. The five of them had been quarantined in two of the bedrooms, and blankets had been moved to fit the other four in one room. Dongho rushed between the two rooms and the kitchen, and had told the other three to relax a bit; it would be the only rest they would be getting for a while. Seungcheol had left the dorm to go spend time with a friend, so Dongwon and Jihoon had the room to themselves.

 

Dongwon had taken off his uniform, and as he removed his shirt, Jihoon couldn't help but gasp internally at the number of bruises there were on his chest. He felt ashamed for not noticing them earlier either. "Hyung, what's going on? Please tell me."

 

"It's nothing, Jihoon-ah. They're just some idiots who can't understand that people are different to them, and so I try to stand up for yo- them."

 

"Me?"

 

"No, those people that they're talking about."

 

"Hyung, you're lying again."

 

The air got heavy as the only sound that filled the room came from the cold blue buzz of the heater. "If you're going to keep lying, I don't see a point in me trying to help you." Jihoon stood up, and walked towards the door. "Come find me when you want to tell the truth."

 

\--------

 

Jihoon stopped talking, and froze. Jeonghan watched as he rubbed up and down his arm, obviously distressed by something. "Stop talking if you want to, alright?"

 

"No, I'm fine. I- I just need to get over this and I'll be fine. That day is just something I try not to remember, it brings back a lot of memories."

 

Jihoon, clearly, was not fine. His eyes glazed over, and the empty coffee mug in his trembling hands looked dangerously close to falling to the floor. His breathing accelerated, and his chest felt constricted, as if his lungs were being squeezed. Jeonghan took the mug from Jihoon's shaking hands, and placed it with his own one in the sink. "Breathe, breathe.” He lightly took hold of the younger's hands to prevent from shaking more, and then with a soft voice, spoke. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"

 

The younger boy let his head fall back, and shut his eyes, then swallowed and with a shaky voice, shook his head and spoke. “I can’t, I’m sorry.” Jeonghan heard an angry sob and he pulled Jihoon into a warm and comforting hug. Jeonghan noticed that his shirt was getting wet with tears, but he couldn’t care less. “It was nearly every night from then on hyung. For three months, and it just got worse and worse, every night, and I couldn’t tell him to stop, I was too scared, I was too stupid. He did so much for me and if I wasn’t so broken, maybe everything would have worked out, he wouldn’t have left. I want to blame him but I can’t, it’s all my fault! I could’ve told anyone, any of the hyungs, even the staff or my parents, but I didn’t, and I’m just so stupid!”

 

Jeonghan didn't know exactly what had happened to Jihoon basically every night for three months, but he could make a good guess, and even imagining that made him shudderinternally. "It'll get better, I know it." He tried to comfort the younger boy, but the other just pushed him away and scoffed.

 

"It's been four and a half years, Jeonghan. Four and a half years, damnit! When is it going to start getting better, in another four years?" The tone in his voice changed from one of vulnerability to something almost like anger, but not quite that -- Jeonghan couldn't tell exactly what it was. "It's not going to get better, the only way it can get better is by changing the past, and I can't do that, can I?"

 

Jihoon laughed coldly. "It's not going to get better, I'm gonna be broken for the rest of my life, aren't I? I should be doing better, but evidently I can't even recover correctly, I'm just getting worse. Why the hell am I flinching when people touch me, he never did anything to physically hurt me? Why does he get to keep going with his life, yet I'm still stuck on this stupid thing from when I was 13? It's a joke, hyung, getting better."

 

Jeonghan pondered for a minute, then spoke quietly, "Jihoon-ah, I'm really sorry to say this, but maybe getting help would be good, whether from me, another member, or maybe from someone you don't know." When he heard nothing from Jihoon, he continued. "Don't answer this if you don't want to but, did he-"

 

"He didn't, I know what you're asking, and he didn't, he wouldn't ever. He's a good person, you know? The minute I told him that I didn't want to do that sort of stuff, he stopped. He never did anything wrong, he just didn't know." Jihoon smiled halfheartedly at Jeonghan. "I don't think I'll need help for a while. Just, let me talk to you about it occasionally."

 

"I'm always ready to listen, Jihoon-ah. Unless you wake me up in the middle of the night, but even then, I'll gladly listen."

 

Jihoon chuckled and grinned, when two voices rang out from the entrance of the dorm. "We got food!", Seungcheol came storming in carrying one bag, Jisoo not far behind him with another.

 

"I'm here for you." Jeonghan whispered, and ran his fingers through Jihoon's hair before he greeted the new arrivals.

 

This time, Jihoon did not flinch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been in the works for months, I kid you not. It took me a long time to write this, considering that the plotline is something that personally happened to me last year. You can tell that my outlook on what happened to me changed a bit over the time I've been writing, reflected by the frequent changes in Jihoon's attitude. I've had to split it into two parts, so that I don't put off publishing it any longer. The second part should hopefully be out before New Year's, but I'm not making any promises. The chapter after this one is already nearly finished ironically, so I hope you'll look forward to that, more lighthearted chapter. 
> 
> All the best!


	4. Coming Out Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seventeen is sure that they are probably one of the gayest groups in K-Pop, exes don't have to be jerks, and the Punger Gaymes begin.

One by one, the members all began to return from their various schedules, and gathered in the dorm. Jihoon decided that, no matter how awful he was feeling, he still needed to go to practice, that was the professional thing to do, right? And so, the band of 13 made their way over to the company building. His discussion with Jeonghan still lingered on his mind, did the elder really not think there was something wrong with him? That was the first time someone, except for those few articles about asexuality online, had actually told him that no, he wasn't broken, and that no, there was nothing wrong with him. Hearing that made him feel so much better already.

Practice was a disaster. The atmosphere was tense, every single run-through they did, someone would mess up, guaranteed, and nobody could focus. The smell of sweat was already overwhelming after just one hour, and the bright colors of the music were nothing but an added thought in his crowded mind.

"Take ten," Soonyoung called after two run-throughs without mistakes. They were not consecutive, Jihoon noted, and there had been at least 20 failed attempts in between each of those two. On a normal day, the thirteen would be chatting amongst themselves during the breaks, but this time, there was an almost deafening silence, the only sound coming from the occasional gulp of water.

By the time minute three had passed, Seungcheol had gotten enough silence to last him a year, and decided that this, whatever it was, needed to end. "Right, we're going to talk, and sort out this damn awkwardness, it's driving me crazy."

Seungcheol expected at least half of the group not to join him, but was surprised when everybody scooted over to have a nice little chat. Yet nobody spoke. With a sigh, Seungcheol attempted to prompt someone to speak. “Anyone?”

“I like men.” Jisoo mumbled quietly, but it cut through the silence and everyone heard it. All the eyes in the room were on him, and then he repeated himself, with more confidence this time. “I like men, I’m not ashamed to say it, I’m super fucking gay, and you are all gonna have to deal with my gay ass.” 

“Hyung swore!” Chan called out, smiling brightly, and Jisoo’s eyes grew wide as his hands flew to cover his mouth.

Minghao, who had looked as if he was half asleep just a minute prior, looked slightly more awake, and chuckled a bit. “Is today coming out day? ‘Cause bi the way, I’m bi.” He sniggered at his own joke, and Seungcheol rolled his eyes.

“I’m bi too.” He said.

Meanwhile, Seungkwan and Hansol looked at each other in a bit of confusion. “Sorry, but how gay is our group?” Seungkwan asked. 

“We haven’t even finished yet, Seungkwan, there’s more.” Jeonghan grinned, brushing his hair out of his face. “I’m pansexual, I don’t really give a damn about gender, girl, boy, anything else, I like it.”

“And I literally give no fucks.” Wonwoo stated. All eyes turned to stare at him, and then he laughed heartily. “I’m asexual and aromantic. I’m not interested in girls, or guys, or anyone, not sexually, not romantically. Sorry ‘Gyu.” 

Mingyu looked shocked for a second. “No, hyung! I-I don’t have a crush on you!”

The amusement on the elder’s face made every one laugh. “Sure.”

“Wait, so you’re telling me, that out of 13 of us,” Seokmin asked, counting on his fingers, “only just over half of us are straight?”

Jeonghan glanced over at Jihoon who was playing with his thumbs and staring at the floor. "Um... Actually," he began, trailing off a bit. "I'm asexual as well. But I'm panromantic, I like all genders romantically, but no one sexually, and it probably doesn't make sense to you and it's stupid and not important-"

"Yah, Jihoonie, if it's something you tell us, it's sure as hell important enough for us to listen to it." Soonyoung placed his hand on the other's shoulder. "I'm proud of you."

"So, can we get back to work please?" Seungcheol eyed the group.

(So technically Jihoon only stayed in the closet a minute longer than the other members, but that's not the point. The story needs to continue and nitpicking won't get it anywhere.)

The next five runs were flawless, and they took an early night.

\--

As they trudged back to the dorm, Jihoon started thinking about something, and his thoughts were loud enough for him to not need to listen to any music. 

"Hyung," he tapped Seungcheol on the shoulder, and the leader turned to look at him. "You remember Dongwon hyung, right?" 

Seungcheol raised one eyebrow, curious about the sudden question. "Yeah, what about him?"

"Do you, you know, have his number or some way I can contact him?" 

"Yeah, I've got his number. I can give it to you at the dorm."

Jihoon looked at the floor, hands in the pockets of his (well, technically it was still Seungcheol's, he was still too broke to get his own) coat. "Sure, thanks." 

"Hey, Jihoon-ah?" Seungcheol asked, and Jihoon looked up at him. "Were you and Dongwon a couple? It seemed like it, and I heard some stuff, but I wasn't sure."

"Yeah." Jihoon whispered, confirming the rapper's suspicions. "He was my boyfriend, we broke up on bad terms, and I need to sort it out."

"Oh." 

"Yeah."

"Well, I hope you can sort whatever you need to sort out." Seungcheol smiled warmly at the vocalist, then paused to think for a second. "This'll probably come off as insensitive, but what's it like to be asexual? I couldn't imagine not feeling sexually attracted to people, it just seems, weird in a way.”

"It's normal for me, to be honest. It's like, I'll see a guy on the street, and think, oh, he's cute, but I'm not gonna think like, oh I want to fuck him or be fucked by him. It's annoying though, because everyone just seems so obsessed with sex nowadays, so it's hard for me to not feel a bit broken when everyone is telling me that sex is the best thing since sliced bread, but I just don't get it. I've heard people say that asexuals could be fixed if they had sex with them, or that we don’t feel emotions, that we’re robots. And it’s not even that all asexuals don’t like sex, I don’t, but some do, we just don’t feel sexual attraction, and there’s a big difference there. Nobody wants to actually listen at all, that’s the part that I hate the most. It pisses me off to no end.”

“Fuck them.” Seungcheol laughed, then continued. “Not you, I’ll fuck them for you.”

A small smile crept onto Jihoon’s face, before he broke out into wholehearted laughter. “Don’t make ace jokes for me, ‘cause you’ll be hearing them all the time from me, and probably Wonwoo, from now on. You might die of excessive puns soon.”

“I’ll be competing with you on that with bi puns. Bi Jihoon!” He smiled before running up to Minghao and whispering something into his ear. Seungcheol then returned, and told Jihoon, “Minghao joined my team. You’re going down.”

“Hyung, I never agreed to a competition.” Jihoon scoffed. “You’re on though. ‘Cause I’m ace at puns.” 

(And then Jihoon ran off with a trail of fabulous unicorns and rainbows — ok not really but give me a break!)

—

“Right, so I think we should make an alliance to go against the Bi-kings 83 and the Secret Gaygents.” Jihoon whispered sitting on the mattress inside his studio, Jeonghan and Wonwoo sat next to him, listening intently. 

The Pun-ger Gaymes were officially due to start at midnight, it was 11:17, and up until that point, Jihoon couldn’t decide whether to join Jeonghan in the Pots Unit, or Wonwoo in I Give No Fucks. So instead, he decided, let’s join the two because it was not fair to leave one of them on their own.

Seungcheol and Minghao got straight to business, coining the name the Pun-ger Gaymes and trademarking the Bi-kings 83 (just 83 for short) the minute they got back to the dorm. Their logo was a Bismuth crystal in all its rainbow glory (much to Jisoo’s dismay, who wanted to use Bismuth for his own team) and they had printed out stickers of it and plastered them all around the company. 

Jihoon found one stuck to his computer, with a note claiming “We will win”, and a crudely drawn smiley face. He threw those into the bin.

Jisoo and Soonyoung created the team the Secret Gaygents about an hour after, and while their logo was nowhere near as cool as 83’s (just a pair of rainbow sunglasses), the fact that they actually both owned a pair of rainbow sunglasses automatically made them the superior team. (Everyone disagreed with that one, it was the puns that made the best team, but Soonyoung said that he gave exactly as many fucks about their opinion as Jihoon and Wonwoo gave.)

And so, Jeonghan, Wonwoo and Jihoon ended up in the studio struggling to come up with a team name. With only forty minutes left until the beginning of the competition, they needed a name, and now.

It was not easy, they decided with seventeen minutes left on the clock, to come up with a half decent pun for their name. They had gone through at least ten different names, from PANcACEs (that one was Wonwoo’s, which makes it quite obvious why it was so awful), Fuck No and Fuck It All (Jeonghan. No comment.) all the way to PANACE at the Disco (Jihoon’s suggestion, which nearly got him thrown out of his own studio.) 

They were stuck. Even more stuck than when Seokmin got his hand stuck in a tissue box (Long story, please, we do not have time for this!)

“We’re stuck.” Jeonghan sighed, and flopped down on the mattress. “We’re supposed to be ace at puns, yet we can’t come up with one good one?”

At that moment, a metaphorical lightbulb went off in Wonwoo’s head, and this lightbulb was so “lightbulby”, that Jeonghan and Jihoon could see the metaphorical light of this metaphorical lightbulb emitting from Wonwoo’s not metaphorical head. “I got it.” He exclaimed, the lightbulb metaphorically shining brighter than ever before. “We can be ace at pans.”

“That is, honestly.” Jihoon rolled his eyes, “The worst pun I have ever heard.” 

The metaphorical lightbulb cracked, broke and went out, and a small pout appeared on Wonwoo’s face. The pout is honestly quite terrifying, Jihoon thought, because that is not a Wonwoo thing to do.

“Let’s use it.”

Apparently, metaphorical lightbulbs can fix themselves, because the metaphorical lightbulb was shining again, even brighter than before.

—

Midnight struck, and the Ace at Pans team stepped into the dorm, where the other two teams were waiting. The Bi-kings 83 had claimed one corner of the living room, and were attempting to glare at the Secret Gaygents in the opposite, yet were failing miserably due to those rainbow sunglasses constantly making them crack up. 

“Did you make your decision?” Commander Seungcheol asked the Ace at Pans. “Bi what name shall I call you?”

At this point, Jihoon realized that the two days of the Pun-ger Gaymes would be extremely long, and even though they had just started, he could not wait for them to be over. 

\--

Jihoon sat alone in the cafe they had decided to meet in, a steaming mug of hot chocolate in his hands and another one opposite him. It was generally quite empty, even more so late at night, and Jihoon found himself as one of the only customers. The quiet murmurs of different sounds blended to make a pretty and calming picture, and Jihoon truly enjoyed that. His phone was blowing up with the teams sending eternal puns at each other, but he had told them of his whereabouts and had threatened them with no lines if they didn't leave him out for a while. He was just a bit early, it wasn't that the other was late at all, but his waiting time still felt like half an eternity. 

The first thing that Jihoon noticed about Dongwon is that he had grown. He was definitely at least the same height as Mingyu, if not taller, yet he didn't make Jihoon feel tiny, unlike Mingyu. The next thing that he noticed was the hair. Dongwon had always been quite handsome, but he had dyed his hair silver, and Jihoon was seriously considering attempting to try back together with him in that moment. He pushed that thought out of his head as quickly as he could. The third, and final thing he noticed about Dongwon before he sat down opposite Jihoon was how tired and worn out he looked. If Jihoon thought he had ever seen dark circles before, he was wrong.

"Hey." A glimpse of a smile formed on Dongwon's face as he sat down. "Long time no see."

"Hey, hyung. How've you been?" 

The intended topic of conversation slowly fell into the back of Jihoon's mind, as they caught up on the years they had missed. Dongwon was already in the third year of a stressful chemical engineering degree, and with him getting no more than three hours of sleep a night, he had started to regret his life decisions, as his roommate, majoring in Classics, was having a much better time than Dongwon. Jihoon also found out that the saying "it's a small world" actually has some truth behind it; after Dongwon had left Pledis and transferred schools, he and Jeonghan were in the same school, and even though Dongwon was in his final year and Jeonghan in his first, they were very close. What were the chances! 

It felt like they had never even parted ways by the time Jeonghan started leaving aggressive voicemails of "Jihoon, where the fuck are you!", and then he realized that he still hadn't addressed the reason why he actually asked Dongwon to talk.

"You wanna come back to the dorm with me?" He asked, "I have to talk to you about a few things."

"Sure, I'll come." They stood up and started walking to the dorm building. "Hey Ji?"

"Yeah?"

"I want to apologize again about what happened. I''m really sorry, Ji."

"You've apologized before, you don't need to apologize again. It happened, and you apologizing isn't going to make it miraculously better."

Shaking his head, Dongwon replied. "No, Ji, I'm not apologizing because I'm trying to fix what I did, I'm apologizing because it's important to me for you to know that I genuinely regret what I did.”

“I don’t need your damn apology! I need to know what was going on!” Exasperated, the younger boy snapped at Dongwon, "What was going on? Please tell me, what was going on, that you felt the need to lie to me, to completely ignore my sexuality, to just leave me in the dark about everything! I was scared, Dongwon, I was bloody terrified, seeing you come back to the dorm with fresh bruises all the time, and you couldn't tell me what the fuck was happening, because I'm the little kid, and I have to be protected! Am I not old enough now to know?"

"Ji, calm down." Dongwon grabbed Jihoon's shoulders, and held him tight. The trainee's cheeks were flushed, not only from the cold, but also from his rage, and salty tears of anger began to well up in his eyes. "Shh... I promise I'll tell you when we can sit down and talk a bit. Just, calm down, alright?"

Dongwon pulled Jihoon into a warm embrace, and although he felt the compulsion to pull away and get as far away from Dongwon as possible, he found himself completely lacking the strength to do so. In a way, it was awkward, considering Dongwon had grown so tall, while Jihoon, although he had grown, was still in essence, a very tall midget. The change in height difference meant that instead of having his head near Dongwon's neck, Jihoon's face was awkwardly squashed into his chest. Which was not bad per se, it was less reminiscent of their previous hugs, but he also got a breath full of vanilla scented perfume, and all his anger dissipated.

"You're wearing the perfume I got you for your birthday." He murmured, still pressed into the elder's torso, slowly pulling away and starting to walk again.

"Yeah." 

"It suits you."

—

In a way, the dorm was both completely familiar and unfamiliar to Dongwon. In the four years he had been gone, the walls of the stairwell had gotten a new cover of paint, the walls were now all covered with posters (most notably around Soonyoung’s bed, where the cream walls were not visible behind the countless SHINee posters, which seemed to have quadrupled in number since he had left), and he only recognised three others except from Jihoon. Seungcheol, Soonyoung and Wonwoo were all glad to see him, and assaulted him with questions about his life, and suddenly, he felt like he was fourteen again, and had never left.

Soon enough, the three left him and Jihoon on their own. The younger led Dongwon over to his bed, and Jihoon flopped down onto it face first, moving a few stuffed animals to the side and beckoning for Dongwon to sit down as well. 

“Tell me what was going on. Tell me why they kept beating you up,” Jihoon sat up, and leant against the wall, “and tell me why you couldn’t tell me earlier."

“Are you sure you want to know?” He whispered, looking directly at Jihoon. “The truth hurts.”

“I’ve waited too long to not want to know. Just tell me.”

“They wanted to do it to you instead, they kept calling you crazy, and there was no way in hell I was going to let them hurt you. I didn’t want to tell you that, ‘cause I knew it would have wrecked your confidence, and so I didn’t tell you anything about it.”

Suffocating silence filled the room.

“Yeah, I know that they called me crazy. I’m not stupid, or deaf. I can hear people talking about me behind my back. I could hear it when my parents thought I was schizophrenic. I could even fucking tell that you felt the same when you showed me what synesthesia is. You’re a genius, did you not think that I maybe have already heard all this shit? It wouldn’t have wrecked my confidence, knowing the truth.” Jihoon, although his words were harsh, stayed quiet. “I’m not a piece of glass, you know. I don’t need to be protected, you didn’t need to get hurt because of me. I’m not just gonna break if you tell me something I didn’t want to hear.”

“Jihoon-ah, who’s thi-?” Jeonghan entered the room, voice loud in comparison with the previous tone, and then his eyes hardened. “Dongwon.”

“Hi Hannie.” Dongwon smiled sheepishly, and gave a meek wave to the boy with the long hair.

“Don’t call me that! You have no fucking right to call me that after what you did to Jihoon!” He approached the other boys with such a fire in his eyes that Jihoon feared that Jeonghan might get physical, and although he didn’t resemble the type of person to throw a good punch, he definitely could.

“Hyung. Calm down.” Quickly, Jihoon grabbed hold of Jeonghan’s arm, preventing him from getting any closer to Dongwon, who looked like his life had just been put in danger (which it maybe was, considering Jeonghan’s rage.)

“I’m not going to calm down! I’m gonna hit him over the head with a frying pan!”

Jihoon broke out into laughter, as did Dongwon, and Jihoon wrapped his arms around Dongwon as to steady himself. His efforts failed, instead they both fell over, and then a few seconds later, Jeonghan laughed heartily, collapsing next to the other two boys, arm draped over them.

“Isn’t it weird that I’m lying on a bed, in the room where I used to live, next to my two exes?” 

“I’m still angry at you, Won.” Jeonghan murmured, lightly hitting his stomach.

“Wait, you dated?” Jihoon asked, lifting his head to look over at Jeonghan, who just grinned. “I never knew that!”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Jihoonie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> It took me a long time to write this, and I know that bringing this up will open wounds, and bring the mood down, but it needs to be said.
> 
> Jonghyun's passing is sad, and we should mourn. A while back, I went on a World War One battlefield and graveyard tour with my school. What our guide told us about how to act in the graveyards I think is important for everyone to hear in a time like this.
> 
> "Yes, it is sad, but you have to remember, these soldiers are young lads, nothing would make them happier than hearing the chatter and laughter of young girls. Show respect, mourn, but don't feel like you can't be happy."
> 
> Let's mourn now, but let's not only feel sad when we think of Jonghyun in the future. When we recover, let's be happy when we think of Jonghyun, because nothing would make him happier than hearing the laughter and seeing the smiles of Shawols (and non-Shawols) around the world.
> 
> Let's start 2018 happy, and try to stay happy in the future.
> 
> \--
> 
> On a brighter note, happy birthday to Joshua and V! 
> 
> And also, I posted this before the New Year! Yay! The Punger Gaymes (you guys like that?) chapter will be out in the new year, as a bit of relief from all this slightly weird angsty mess. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Byeeeeee!
> 
> (And apologies for the amount of F-bombs and swearing in this chapter, this will probably be the most I will use in one chapter but we'll see)


	5. The Pun-ger Gaymes (and other more important things)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the Pun-ger Gaymes begin. (And other stuff, but really it’s the Pun-ger Gaymes.)

There are three things that need clarification before the story of the Pun-ger Gaymes begins.

One, as the only straight member of the hyungs, Junhui was given the honor to judge the competition.

Two, no one knew exactly how, or why, the got themselves into this.

Three, Point One is only 50% true.

The first day wasn’t too bad. Aside from the occasional insult, it was quite calm, and day one ended with The Secret Gaygents taking the lead with Joshua complaining about being “homolone”. The moment he sent that into their Pun-ger Gaymes group chat (yes, that was a thing, and you are free to judge them as much as you like), Jihoon regretted having this competition at all. He had better things to be doing with his time, like sitting in front of a computer in a composing slump for hours on end.

(He had nothing better to do, but he was not about to admit that.)

By day three of seven, the Ace at Pans were worried. Bi-kings 83 were leading, with a small gap between them and the Secret Gaygents. Then, a solid fifty points behind, the final team was stuck at the bottom. They needed a plan.

One would think that the best way to win a war about puns would be to use puns. Jeonghan was sure that this was definitely not the case. The best, and only way to properly play and win the game would be to steal the phones of the strongest opponents.

The plan was set out. Minghao was incompetent at puns, so his phone would be left in peace. Jihoon was to go steal Jisoo’s phone, while Wonwoo and Jeonghan would get the other two. 

It was day 6 when they decided to initiate the master plan. The gap had closed considerably, and they really only needed a few more decent puns to win. Jihoon sat in his studio, waiting for seven pm, the time when he was to swoop in to come.

6:49 pm.

Grey.

Or still in other words, buzz.

“Hello?”

“Jihoon-ah. It’s your mom.” Jihoon didn’t need the identification. He recognized he voice instantly. The voice that he had grown up with, the forest green, was so troubled by emotions that it looked more like a muddy brown. “Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah, sure.” He replied, trying to keep any emotion hidden. He was still angry at her, but she didn’t need to know that.

They spoke for a while, about slightly irrelevant things, and Jihoon knew that she wasn’t calling just to make small talk — nobody in his family was good at small talk, and they all hated it with a passion.

“We’ve been thinking, your dad and I, about what you told us. About your, you know,” She hesitated, as if she was trying to find the right words to say, “your sexuality.”

“And?” Now, at this point, Jihoon knew he was being extremely rude, but he really couldn’t care less. If he were at home, maybe that would have resulted in a good round of shouting, but he was in his studio, and if he needed to, he knew that he could end the conversation with the click of a button. He was not in the mood to hear once again that, actually, asexuality doesn’t exist, or that he had to pick a side.

“I want to apologise, Jihoon-ah. We shouldn’t have reacted like that. It just came as a shock, you know. We’ve always wanted to be grandparents, and then to hear that our only child doesn’t want to have children, it really surprised us. It’s alright that you like men, it’s alright that you’re asexual, it’s alright that you don’t want to get married. I don’t understand it, but I’m going to try my best to understand, because you’re my son, and I love you.”

Jihoon didn’t realize that he was crying until Wonwoo burst into the studio, “Ya Jihoon! What happened to taking Shu-“ 

The singer turned to face the intruder, who then promptly left, and then turned away, and whispered a single word to his mom.

“고맙다.”

—

Day Seven arrived, and Jihoon was regretting all his life decisions (ok, maybe only one, but once again, stop nitpicking!), mainly the decision to take part in the Pun-ger Gaymes. He decided that he definitely give no fucks about the game, and instead resorted to avoiding anyone involved in it for the whole day. That was harder said than done, considering that half of the group was involved, so he decided that maybe he should retreat to his favorite place in the company building — his studio.

Jihoon, when experiencing any remotely negative emotion, goes into one of three states. The first of these is a vegetative state in which he does absolutely nothing and instead chooses to simply sit around, a skill that a lot of the younger members (note: Seokmin and Seungkwan), and Soonyoung seem to lack; the trio seemed to always need constant stimulation. The second of these three states was the so-called Don’t-talk-to-me-or-I-will-murder-you mode. Recently, he found himself in that state considerably more than before. The third state, t he one that he was currently in, was called the inner-Mendelssohn mode (originally called the inner-Mozart mode, but it was changed after Jihoon openly expressed his hatred of Mozart, claiming that “Mozart started composing age five, but his maturity in lyrics and music never progressed past fifteen.”) This mode was the worst of the three modes, with Jihoon locking himself in his studio, composing up a storm, and coming out completely dissatisfied with everything (these things generally being classical compositions and not songs that could be of any use to the group) he had produced, just like Mendelssohn with his Italian Symphony. Jihoon, still to this day, hates this mode with a passion (and this is not referring to the time that he was in this mode for so long that he ended up composing half a passion), mainly because in this mode, the colors of the pieces never match properly, and that gives him immense stress.

Sadly, it was also the most common of the three modes, and so by the time Seungcheol found the younger boy at his computer at three in the morning, Jihoon had finished the exposition of his second clarinet concerto, and was half way through the development, dreaming about how it would feel to play the piece with the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra.

“But ‘Cheol-hyung! I need to finish the development before I leave!” He whined, reaching out for the open document as the leader carried him out of the room. “The conductor of the Busan Phil has to give the parts to the orchestra by the end of the week!”

“Jihoon-ie, have you even contacted this orchestra?” Seungcheol asked, trying to reason with the boy raving about his composition like a Bacchant.

And in that moment, Jihoon remembered that, oh wait, he had not contacted Busan Philharmonic Orchestra, and that there was a zero percent chance that his concerto would ever be played. “Hyung! They’re never going to play my piece!” He pouted as Seungcheol continued to carry him through the company.

“Maybe they will, when you become famous enough. But for now, you’re a trainee, and you should be training like a trainee, not writing concertos and operas.”

Jihoon pouted again.

 

“No, but seriously, hyung, that was actually a really good one please let me go and save it.”

“I saved it for you.”

Jihoon went silent again, and then peeped up. “Hyung, I want to write a piece dedicated to each of the members.“

“You do that Hoonie, just not now.”

“This one is for you, hyung. It reminds me of you and your colors.”

Oh yes, we forgot that in this third mode, Jihoon becomes a whiny composing obsessed child when he is torn away from his work.

—

When they reached the dorms, Jihoon had finally shut up about his concerto, and was now raving about writing a musical, which seemed like a considerably better idea to Seungcheol, yet it all seemed like random nonsense to him; the Italian and French terms the boy was throwing around meant little to him. 

“Go to bed Jihoon-ah. You’re not making any sense anymore.” He said as he placed the younger boy onto his bed.

“Hyung.”

“Mm?”

“Who won the Pun-ger Gaymes?”

“It was a tie. Three ways. Junnie couldn’t decide, so it was a tie.”

“You see, hyung,” Jihoon mumbled, “this is why you don’t have a straight guy judging gay humor. They just can’t tell what’s good and what’s not.”

“Jihoon-ah, Jun isn’t straight. If you had looked at the group chat, or even talked to anyone in the last ten hours, you would know this.” Seungcheol sighed. “Anyways, good night, Jihoon. Go to sleep, we have practice in the morning.”

“G’night ‘Cheollie hyung.”

Well, that was a waste of seven days, Jihoon thought, as he drifted off to dreams of the second movement of his unfinished concerto. For the night, it would be named Seungcheol. Maybe the name would change in the morning, but for now, Seungcheol and his cobalt blue fit it perfectly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again everyone! It’s been nearly two months since I’ve posted, and a lot had been going on in my life. I got my mock GCSE results back (which were alright), have had a repetitive strain injury in my foot for nearly two months now, am nearly 15 and have basically been studying the whole time... Anyways! 
> 
> First of all, why does everything I write end in sleep?
> 
> Second of all, if you couldn’t tell, I’m a massive music (and classics) nerd (and an amateur composer) and so is Jihoon in this story, so if anyone doesn’t understand/hasn’t looked up any of the awful music references in this chapter I’ll put them at the bottom.
> 
> Third of all, why did I barely even talk about the Pun-ger Gaymes? It’s more about Jihoon being ridiculous when composing...
> 
> What do you guys want to see next? Either:
> 
> A. Jihoon having a migraine and an awful day and Seungkwan trying/failing to take care of him, or,
> 
> B. Jihoon complaining about all his roommates sleep talking (inspired by the fact that my dorm mates are currently sleep talking...), or,
> 
> C. A completely different idea, maybe not even focusing on Jihoon?
> 
> MUSICAL STUFF
> 
> “Mozart started composing age five, but his maturity in lyrics and music never progressed past fifteen.” - I, personally, am not a fan of Mozart. His music is overrated and just a bit childish for me (says the person voluntarily playing a Mozart concerto...). To be fair, it’s better than my pieces but still, have you heard Mendelssohn, and basically any romantic composer? As well, if you look up Mozart and Scatology on Wikipedia, you’ll understand why I said his maturity in lyrics also didn’t grow.
> 
> “Dissatisfied like Mendelssohn with his Italian Symphony” - The Italian Symphony is a 4 movement Symphony by Mendelssohn, the one that I am currently studying. He wasn’t satisfied with it, and was going to rewrite it. 
> 
> “Passion” - This is an awful musical play on words. A passion is not only the commonly known definition of passion, but also an oratorio (which is basically a religious opera) on the passion/life of Christ.
> 
> “Exposition” and “Development” - the first two of the three parts of sonata form, which is generally the first movement of a concerto, symphony or sonata.
> 
> Concerto vs Symphony vs Sonata - A concerto is a soloist accompanied by an orchestra, a symphony is an orchestra without a soloist and a sonata is a soloist accompanied by a piano or a type of piano solo.
> 
> “Raving like a Bacchant” - followers of the Roman God of partying and madness Bacchus (Greek: Dionysus). Bacchants were basically constantly having a rave. The term “raving like a Bacchant” basically means like a crazy person.
> 
> “Italian and French terms” - In western classical music, Italian and French terms (with the occasional German) are most commonly used, rather than English or any other languages to tell the performers how to play.
> 
> Well, this is it! Thank you for reading! Have a great day, stay hydrated, make sure to eat enough, and try to be healthy!


	6. The Migraine (or Death by Headache)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Migraine - “Please, for my sanity, shut up, your voice is way too bright and I really don't need more flashing lights when I already have a migraine.” 
> 
> It’s meant to be platonic SeungkwanxJihoon but it’s more like me releasing my frustrations about migraines.

When Jihoon woke up on Sunday morning, the first thing he felt was the intense pounding in his head. He shut his eyes, then buried his face in his pillow and pulled the sheets over his head. There, much better, he thought. The pounding hadn’t stopped, but he felt considerably better than when he had faced the light. So, he happily shut his eyes and attempted to sleep. The next thing he knew though, someone had torn his duvet off of his body and the sudden light made the pounding even worse. He grasped at thin air, trying to get his warmth and darkness back, then heard the piercing morning screams of the main vocalist and decided that dying would actually be a great option at this point.

"Seungkwan. Shut. Up." He glared at the boy through squinted eyes, and attempted to kick him off the bed, which only made his headache worse. 

Seungkwan did, in fact, not shut up, he just got louder, and if Jihoon's headache didn't get worse with every movement he made, he would have kicked him in the face. 

"WAKE UP WAKE UP!" Seungkwan screeched, and before Jihoon could send a snarky remark back, he felt a wave of intense nausea rise up, and there he was, bolting out of bed and towards the bathroom. And even though his head felt like it would explode even more with every step he took and the bright light of the sun, he reached the bathroom door and turned the handle.

Jihoon couldn't remember anything between him crashing into the bathroom and having his hair held back by someone while he regurgitated the remnants of last night’s dinner and stomach acid, but he was honestly happy he couldn't. His head ached, he still felt sick to his stomach, and he felt like, well, absolute shit. 

Well, so much for a good day off, he thought, and then proceeded to empty his stomach once again. 

Jihoon trudged back to his bed, eyes nearly completely shut and dragging his feet across the floor, and when he reached the mattress he let himself collapse. 

Seungkwan came back into the room, with the three eldest members in tow, whispered something and then left the room.

"You alright?" Seungcheol whispered, to which Jihoon groaned in response. He curled up on the bed, and then felt the blanket being placed gently on top of him. A warm hand touched his forehead, and then more whispers, and the pounding in his head intensified again.

"Shut up. I'm having a migraine and you guys talking doesn't help."

"Oh." Jeonghan started before Jisoo slapped his hands over his mouth.

Jisoo stood up and went to draw the curtains, and Jihoon instantly felt slightly better as the light intensity dropped. 

Seungkwan returned with a large bowl in his arms, "I got you this if you th-"

Jihoon glared at him. His bright yellow voice was not necessary right now. "Please, for my sanity, shut up, your voice is way too bright and I really don't need more flashing lights when I already have a migraine.” 

Jihoon watched the boy's face fall, and he couldn't help but feel awful inside. So when the younger approached him and placed the bowl by his side, he muttered a "Thank you," and sent a mental apology to him. 

Jihoon didn't notice that everyone had left until Jeonghan came back in with a piece of paper, a small white pill and a glass of water in his hands. Jeonghan pointed at the paper, then smiled and left the room. Jihoon stared at the words swimming in front of his eyes for a second, then deciphered the word "Painkiller", and swallowed the pill. 

While, yes, Jihoon had lived with this synesthesia thing since he was born, he was a very introverted child, and preferred to have fun on his own and most importantly, in quiet areas. This did lead to him being a bit more sensitive to loud sounds than others, and when the migraines started at age 14, Jihoon decided that there was not a single good thing that could come out of synesthesia. (He thinks differently now, but that's not the point.) He had known what a migraine was for a long time, and had also decided long ago that they were one of the most evil things known to man. 

The worst part about waking up with a full-fledged migraine was that of boredom. Music was not an option, even the slightest sound would intensify he pain at least ten-fold, and light and bright colors made it even more unbearable, making many sounds he generally didn’t mind torturous. He was too awake to sleep, and so his only option was to just lie there and wait for the painkiller to kick in, and to attempt to sleep again.

—

Jihoon didn’t remember falling asleep, but he was glad he did. Finally, the intense pounding had subsided slightly to a more subtle pain. The blinds were still drawn completely shut, something that was well appreciated, and the dorm was as silent as Jihoon ever remembered it being. The only thing making the situation not bearable was the overwhelming stench of vomit on his shirt — even though none had gotten on his shirt (he was sure of that), somehow it smelled worse than before he went to sleep. Ignoring his brain screaming at him to sit his lack of ass back down, he stumbled over to the washing basket to find a shirt that would smell less repulsive (the washing basket contained the closest and most accessible clothing, and Jihoon was sure as hell not planning to move anymore than he had to). He took a quick sniff of the first vaguely comfortable shirt, and decided that it was definitely better than vomit, and exchanged his own one for the other one. While it completely drowned his figure, there was no longer that lingering scent of his stomach contents, and that was most important. Jihoon still felt (and probably looked) awful, but having improved one of the issues was very useful. And then, in that moment, Jihoon immediately regretted his decision to change his shirt; another, more intense wave of nausea rose up, and once again, he was positioned over the toilet bowl, dry heaving and desperately attempting to not throw up any stomach acid. The light streaming in intensified his pain, and somehow, Jihoon felt like everything that had gotten better had somehow gotten worse. 

It seemed like on this particular day, Jihoon was having a lot of memory blanks, which granted, were well appreciated given the circumstances, however actually knowing what had happened that made him end up back on his bed without a blanket, and with a cup of tea and some instant ramen by his side could be even better. As he sipped at the tea, he could hear the dull beige creaking of the floorboards outside the bedroom, and when a small sliver of light streamed in, he was extremely grateful to whoever had entered. Although it would have been nice to not have any light in the room at all, the consideration that the member who had come in had taken for him made his already quite soft heart simply melt.

“Jihoon hyung,” Seungkwan whispered, ”I’m really sorry to disturb you but I brought you a replacement blanket. Make sure you eat something in case you’re sick again, ‘kay? Hope you feel better soon hyung.” The vocalist attempted to take his leave, but Jihoon grabbed his sleeve and held him back. 

“Thanks.”

———

It was late in the afternoon when Jihoon found the strength to get out of bed and greet the outside world again. The pain had subsided to something no worse than an average headache, and with the painkiller that he assumed Seungkwan had brought him while he slept, he felt so much better.

Dragging his feet across the floor, he went looking for anyone to notify of his slightly recovered state. He knew that there wouldn’t be many people around; any and all free time would be well spent, and Jihoon knew that most of the members probably had plans. He himself was meant to go shopping with Seungcheol and Soonyoung; rather than cancelling the trip, the two went alone, and Jihoon sincerely hoped that they could find something he would wear in his size (the two parameters never seemed to overlap).

Then it hit him again. The stench, the revolting stench of vomit, again, forced him to try to find something else to wear. Three shirts in one day, must be a record, he groaned internally as he once again dug through the laundry basket, grabbing the first shirt he knew none of the members found special, and slipped it on.

“You’re wearing my shirt, hyung,” was the first thing Jihoon heard that day that didn’t send waves of agony through his brain. Seungkwan was sat on the couch doing, well, something. Jihoon looked down at himself, and then confirmed that, yes, he was most definitely wearing Seungkwan’s shirt.

“Sorry...” he spoke quietly, voice hoarse from lack of use and (oh yes!) the stomach acid that he had had enough of, “I’ll go get changed.”

“It’s fine, if you’re comfortable, don’t bother getting changed.” 

Jihoon would be the first to admit that he wasn’t always the best at expressing his gratitude. The simple and overused words “Thank you” could never carry his true feelings, but making it too wordy seemed, well, awkward. Unless they were lyrics, words were awkward for him to navigate. Jihoon knew he could go on and on, telling Seungkwan “I appreciate you so much, you’ve been so kind to me today, and you’re always such a sweetheart and I’m so sorry I’ve been snappy with you, but I really want to let you know that I love you to death...”

Actions speak louder than words though, and granted, actions were probably just as bad as words at conveying what he truly felt, but he needed to find some way to express himself and he was sure as hell not going to go write a song.

“Seungkwan-ah.” He sat down on the sofa with the younger. “Do you wanna order food? It’s hyung’s treat.”

Jihoon sincerely hoped Seungkwan that got the message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don’t like this chapter at all, but I wanted to post something and it’s been sitting in my drafts for a long time now. There’s not enough interaction, nor detail and RS really just me moaning about how awful migraines are. Oh whale.
> 
> Now, you’re in control about which chapter comes next. One of them is going to be extremely dark and deal with some not so nice things, and it’s not Jihoon centric. The other one is more lighthearted, and most definitely Jihoon centric. 
> 
> BUT!
> 
> You don’t get to choose which one you get to see first directly! Haha I’m evil! 
> 
> Choose between:
> 
> Option M
> 
> OR
> 
> Option P
> 
> And if you get lazy, don’t vote, I’ll just choose the dark one and make you regret everything. 
> 
> (The letters for the options have a meaning, but don’t bother trying to figure it out. They’re just so that I remember which option is which, because if I chose A and B, I’d forget.)
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed (or at least tolerated) this chapter, please leave constructive criticism, take care of yourselves and bye!


	7. The Medication (or Everything's Falling Apart All At Once)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It takes them all too long to notice. Just a bit too long.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: This chapter contains references to anorectics (drugs that reduce appetite), a situation that could be likened to an eating disorder and anxiety. Please do not read beyond this point if you believe that any harm could come from it.

The sun had yet to rise, but Soonyoung was already awake. Although he desperately wanted to go back to sleep, he had things to do. Careful not to be too loud, he made his way to the kitchen and opened the cabinet that he knew all too well. The cupboard would, on a good day, only be opened for the daily things, but most days, when Hansol forgot that oh yes, I’m allergic to peanuts and they could kill me, or Mingyu ended up tripping and getting cut again (this was the more common of the two, but the former was considerably more common than it should be), the cabinet could be constantly open.

Hidden in a small pouch behind the cold medicine, Epi-Pens and aspirin was what Soonyoung was looking for. He grabbed the pouch, and took the key out of it.

The locked drawer, located next to the fridge, unlike the cabinet, was only ever opened by four specific people: Seungcheol, the (only vaguely) responsible member, one of the managers, and the two members who actually needed the contents of the drawer. Most of the members didn’t even know that there was something in there, and Soonyoung liked to keep it that way, hence only opening it when he knew nobody who wasn’t meant to see wasn’t around.

Even in the low light, it wasn’t too hard for him to tell which of the contents of the drawer he needed. After all, he did this nearly every morning. Soonyoung took out the bottle and packet of pills, and then the notebook, and then the pen, and then the plastic plate. He poured out the whole bottle onto the plate, and then one by one, started counting.

One.

Two.

Three.

Fo- “Morning, Soonyoungie.”

Soonyoung scrambled to try to hide what he was doing, and then registered who the voice belonged to.

“Morning, hyung,” he replied.

Jisoo rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and approached the drawer. Without hesitating, he grabbed the only other bottle left in the drawer and opened it. He shook one pill into his hand, before filling a glass with water and downing his medication.

Soonyoung didn’t know what Jisoo took his medication for, it was something they had never discussed, but Soonyoung knew that they were not taking them for the same reason. While Soonyoung could, and actually needed to take breaks from his medication, he had only seen Jisoo miss more than one day once, and it had been a disastrous time.

“You want me to help count?” Jisoo offered, and Soonyoung simply nodded. Soonyoung had to go through the tedious task of counting and logging his medication, while Jisoo did not have to do that. So, for the sake of helping Soonyoung, Jisoo would occasionally take some time to make the mundane task a bit faster.

“There’s 32 of this one left. It’s the 36mg, right?” Jisoo asked, having already picked up the pen and moving through the notebook to the right page.

“Yeah.” Soonyoung replied, taking one from the plate. “And it’s 53 for the 10mg.”  
He then popped one out of the packet, and with the same water as Jisoo, he swallowed the pills.

“Ew, you nasty child, drinking my water.” Jisoo laughed, returning the contents of the drawer to their place and locking the drawer.

“Well, hyung, I’m a lazy child, so I’m not going to get another cup of water when there’s already one there.”

“Fair.” The elder cracked a grin. “You want coffee?”

“Should I? Hell no. But, like, coffee, so sure.”

“Sucks for you, cause I’m not making it. I’m going back to bed. ‘Night, Soonyoung.”

God damn Hong Jisoo, Soonyoung thought, shutting the general cupboard with the pouch safely hidden away.

———

As trainees for an idol group, frequent weight check ups were nothing new. It was always the same thing they heard. “You’re all fine, but you can’t gain anymore. Try losing some, but it’s not necessary.” Occasionally, it would turn into “lose 2kg please”, and it was rare that one could hear “you need to gain some weight” (unless you were Xu Minghao, in which case you hear that every single time.)

This is why, when it came to Soonyoung’s turn, he was shocked to hear just that.

“Soonyoung-ah? Have you been eating alright? You’ve lost nearly seven kilograms since last time, you’re only 53 kilos now. Please try to gain some weight.”

Until that moment, it had somehow never occurred to Soonyoung that he hadn’t eaten a proper meal since four days prior, and was running solely on whatever small snacks he could find and his body’s store of energy. It was terrifying, in so many ways, that he could neglect his body so much. A change is necessary, he decided.

———

He had never expected it to get to this point. The number constantly echoed in his head, 53, like it was mocking him and his complete lack of appetite. The afternoon after their weighings, Soonyoung was deep in thought. After a long mental deliberation, he decided that the issue wasn’t even him not wanting to eat. It was more along the lines of an inability to eat. The idea of eating a full meal made him feel almost nauseous, yet he had rarely ever faced any issues with eating a meal. So, he decided, he would try his best to eat and finish his dinner that night.

For once, practice ended at a reasonable hour. The band of boys returned to their dorm, having already ordered some food and looking forward to a nice night in. Soonyoung was in the shower when he heard the doorbell ring, and then the scuffle of feet, and then the muffled conversation between the delivery person and a member. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the anxiety came flooding in. What if he couldn’t do it? What if he ends up failing again? What if?

Soonyoung turned off the water, as he tried to do with his thoughts. The water kept dripping.

Drip.

Drip.

What if?

And his thoughts kept dripping.

———

It was not nearly as difficult as he thought to eat. He did not feel the awful feeling that he expected, instead he was pleasantly surprised to have finished the whole portion. Instead of going to sleep, which would have been a smart idea considering how tired they all were, the older members chose to play some video games. Good decisions were never their strong point. And so there they were, at midnight, playing Mario Kart. Well, it was more like Jihoon and Wonwoo getting excessively competitive again and the others sitting there, rather than them all playing.

It didn’t take for Soonyoung to notice the pain in his stomach area, the dull pain that was relentless, and just getting worse and worse.

“Hey, guys, I’m not really feeling well, so, I’m gonna go to bed, okay?”, he muttered, and most of the members payed it little regard. Only Jisoo and Jeonghan cast him a look of worry, but he ignored them and headed to his room. Then, when he was getting changed, he noticed how bloated he had become, and realized that his pain came from exactly that.

His plan needed to change, because there was no way he could deal with this every day.

———  
Two months, a new year and three weight check-ins had gone by since Soonyoung first realized what was going on, yet the weight of the newly elected performance team leader hadn’t changed significantly, and any change was in the negative direction. The pain he had felt before was exactly the same. Soonyoung regretted everything.

Practices that continued into the wee hours of the morning were Soonyoung’s greatest enemy. As time progressed, not only did he get more tired, but it became increasingly difficult to focus, and Soonyoung knew for a fact that fatigue was not the cause of that. None of the others would ever suffer the issue to the same extent, so it was easy for them to reprimand him and shout “Ya, Soonyoung! Focus!”

Nobody understood. Nobody would ever understand, so why bother telling them?

The added pain of a nearly empty stomach was making the already torturous experience just so much worse; Soonyoung was not only tired and hungry, but also very, very crabby.

“Soonyoung! For heaven’s sake, please stay focused, the faster we finish the earlier you can sleep!”, the dance instructors sharp voice snapped Soonyoung back into reality, and although he desperately wanted to shout back, he only muttered a short apology.

He was trying his best, he really was, yet his best would never be good enough. It could never be good enough, when _he_ was meant to be leading the team in dance, but he was the only one who couldn’t just concentrate on the task at hand. Even Seungcheol, who had so many other things to be focusing on, was actually staying on track.

As the music began to play again, the counts echoed in his head, and then, without him even realizing, his mind had drifted off again, the counts were long gone, and he had no idea where he was meant to pick up the counts again. He just hoped that he would get it right, and they could finally go home.

“We’ll pick it up again later today, when you guys can actually function. Go get some sleep.” Their instructor spoke, dismissing the group. “Soonyoung, let’s have a quick chat.”

Jeonghan made quick eye contact with the younger, indicating that he’d wait, and then Soonyoung approached the instructor, timidly awaiting and bracing himself for what was to come.

“Yes?”

She sighed, “Look, Soonyoung, I don’t know what’s going on, but ever since you became the performance unit leader, you’ve been so out of it. I know that it’s hard, but you need to step up. The others are meant to be looking to you to lead, not me. Sort whatever it is that you need to out, and do it quickly, because your members need you to lead them. You need to stay focused.”

“I’m really sorry. I’m trying-“

She stared at him, as she cut him off, scrutinizing his every movement. “I know you’re trying Soonyoung, but you need to try harder.” She paused. “Go get some sleep, and please sort this out.”

Try harder. It’s not like that’s what he heard every time. It’s not like he’s never bothered to try harder when he heard it. He was already trying his hardest.

Outside the practice room, Jeonghan was waiting for the dancer. “Is everything alright?” He wrapped his arm around Soonyoung, as if the boy needed protection from the world, and only then did he notice just how frail Soonyoung had become.

“It’s all gonna be just fine, hyung. It’s gonna be fine.” Soonyoung replied as they started to walk towards the dorm.

Jeonghan furrowed his brows. “That’s not what I asked, Soonyoung, and you know it. Is everything alright?” He repeated himself.

The cold winter air hit their faces as the main door opened, and Soonyoung couldn’t tell if he started tearing up because of the wind, or himself. “I’m not sure, I don’t know if everything’s alright. I don’t even think anything is alright at all anymore.”

“Do you want to go talk about it?” Jeonghan offered, rubbing small circles into Soonyoung’s back, who just nodded.

In this way, Jeonghan became the first member to know the truth. Jeonghan became the person that felt the duty to look out for the younger, and in some ways, he doubted his ability to help properly.

———

Soonyoung liked to think that he had started to sort things out. With Jeonghan by his side, he felt like maybe, just maybe, he was fine. The week had gone decently well; while his weight still hadn’t changed (he thought), he was still unfocused during practices and about to explode if his inattentiveness was pointed out yet again, there was _something_ (what that something was he did not know) that made him think that it would all be a bit better.

The group of thirteen were practicing without any staff one night when Soonyoung realized that he had used up all of his luck for the week. As he danced, the floor began to swim in front of his eyes, and then rectified itself, and then again. And then the feet. Soonyoung had never been one to struggle so much with his feet. But when they went in the completely wrong places half of the time, Soonyoung knew there was something wrong.

And then, the final straw.

“Focus, Soonyoung! Can’t you just make the effort, for once, to just focus?” Seungcheol snapped, his tone aggressive and harsh. “Pull your own weight.”

“You know what, Seungcheol?” The steely glare of the boy met Seungcheol. “You may find it easy to focus, but I’m working my ass off. Tell me that I need to try harder to focus once you’ve lived a day in my shoes. Take a moment to consider that maybe we’re not all the same, and that maybe some people just can’t concentrate as well as normal! I’m sorry that it’s pissing you off, but I can’t fucking change this; if I could don’t you think I would have tried? It’s a chronic condition, it’s not gonna go away, no matter how hard I try!” Soonyoung paused, the suffocating silence filling the room, and he could feel the palms of his hands slowly beginning to bleed, his nails digging into his skin and drawing the uncomfortably warm fluid out onto his fingers.

Seungcheol opened his mouth to speak, but with one harsh look from each of his age mates he quickly changed his mind.

Soonyoung scoffed, tears welling in his eyes. “I thought that you’d maybe be the one who understood. Thanks a lot, hyung, thanks a lot.”

The door shut loudly after Soonyoung left the room, but it didn’t mask anyone’s shock at the outburst. “Let’s finish here for the night.” Seungcheol muttered, cutting through the tense air. “Everybody, go back to the dorm and get some sleep.”

As the two other eldest were about to leave, Seungcheol grabbed their arms and held them back. “Do you guys know what just happened?”

Jisoo nodded. “Yeah. I know exactly what just happened. But right now, what Soonyoung needs is not for me to be here wasting my time. He needs someone to go tell him that everything is gonna be alright. I’m going.” He headed towards the door, before turning back towards the other two. “And you know what, Cheol? Soonyoung was right. You should know better. It’s not easy to live with a mental disorder, especially one that people assume doesn’t exist, and you, of all people should have noticed that. Don’t you remember last time?”

Before leaving the room, he spoke again. “Hannie, wait for us, it won’t be long.”

———

The cold wind blew in Soonyoung’s face, eliciting more and more tears, and the now actually open cuts on his hands were beginning to bleed more rapidly. He wanted to be angry, he wanted to be frustrated that even the person he thought he could trust didn’t care, but there was no way that he could be angry at Seungcheol. Because maybe, it was all true. Maybe, he just wasn’t trying hard enough. Maybe he was failing. Maybe he wasn’t ready to lead a team.

“Soonyoung-ah?” A voice called from the door to the rooftop. Soonyoung didn’t turn around, and then Jisoo was by his side. “He didn’t mean what he said.”

As he took the hands of the dancer and pried his clenched fists open, he continued to speak. “Seungcheol can be a bit insensitive about these sorts of things, I know. He’s never going to fully understand it, and that’s something that takes a while to accept. He cares though, you do know that, right? He loves you.”

Although it stung when Jisoo brought the antibacterial to his open cuts, he made no sound and let Jisoo continue to speak. “I’m so proud of you, Soonyoungie. Don’t think that you’re not good enough, because you’re awesome. You’re like a star, bright, fiery, unique, and nobody is allowed to take that away from you.”

The elder paused as he rummaged through the first aid kit to find some bandages to put on the cuts. “Hyung, why are you doing this? You should be doing more important things, I’m not that important.”

“Because you are important. You mean a lot to us all. And because I’ve been in your position before, but I didn’t have anyone to help me. And I‘ve realized how much of a difference it makes.” The bandages had been fully applied. “Let’s get downstairs. You’re gonna freeze up here.”

Slowly, the pair descended the stairs from the rooftop. Every so often, the younger boy would stumble, but he would regain his balanced quickly. As they shuffled down the corridor, everything started going wrong.

Suddenly, the younger boy collapsed to the ground, falling heavily. Jisoo prodded him, and grabbed his wrist to try to pull him up. There was no response. And although it was the worst time to realize this, Jisoo just noticed how thin the dancers wrists had become; he let go, fearing that his bones might snap in half.

“Soonyoung? Soonyoung, wake up!” Jisoo shouted at Soonyoung, desperately trying to get some sort of a sign that the dancer was still alive.

“Jeonghan!” He clamored multiple times, hoping and praying that the other would hear him. “Call an ambulance!”

It took them all too long to notice. Just a bit too long.

———

By the time the ambulance reached the hospital, word had already reached the other members, who had been told to stay in the dorm. Seungcheol was in the managers car, weaving through traffic to arrive as quickly as possible.

Jisoo was panicking. The sight of a friend, a brother, lying unconscious on a hospital bed was enough to send him into a full-blown anxiety attack. Anxiety was a familiar friend who had come to knock down his door once again.

“Shua. I promise you, he’s going to be fine.” The comforting voice of the older cut through his thoughts as they sat in the waiting area. “Breathe, breathe. In, out, in, out.”

Seungcheol had reached the hospital, and he and the manager waited with the other two, Seungcheol pacing up and down.

Nobody was sure how much time had passed before the doctor came out, taking their manager to a private room. The three waited, and let the time pass by. Jisoo had fallen asleep on Jeonghan’s shoulder, and then Jeonghan checked his phone. It had just passed two am, and the group chat was blowing up with messages asking about the whereabouts of the missing members. He hesitated to reply; what could he say that wouldn’t worry the members further?

yooncheonsa

everything’s fine guys. something came up, we just need to sort it out. i promise we’re all safe, stop worrying and go to sleep.

He muted the group chat and put his phone back, having sent the message.

Everything was going to be just fine, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the very delayed update! I finished writing this chapter a LONG time ago, and I never had the confidence in this chapter to actually post it. The contents of this chapter are a reflection of something that I deal with on a regular basis, and it's important to me that people are aware of situations like this. I will likely be rewriting this chapter (as well as most of the story), as I am wholly unsatisfied with my portrayal of such a serious issue, however, I would like to finish posting this part of the story arc before doing so. 
> 
> More about the details will be revealed in subsequent chapters, but I hope you can guess what is being alluded to.

**Author's Note:**

> Well... I wasn't going to post this but eh! You can message me on Twitter at @alltheminhos , I'm friendly!


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